Native Americans Various
Indian tribes had used this area for thousands of years. When the region was explored by the English in the 17th century, the
Algonquian-speaking
Chickahominy tribe inhabited areas along the
Chickahominy River that was later named for them by English colonists. The
Paspahegh lived in Sandy Point, and the
Weanoc lived in the Weyanoke Neck area. The latter two tribes were part of the
Powhatan Confederacy. At the time of the earliest English settlement, the independent Chickahominy people occupied territory surrounded by numerous tribes of the powerful
Powhatan Confederacy, but they were not part of it. Chickahominy descendants still inhabit the region. These three tribes were all Algonquian-speaking tribes, the language family of the varied peoples who occupied the Tidewater and low country in Virginia and along the East Coast from Canada to south of the Carolinas. The English named the Weyanoke Peninsula after the Weyanoc tribe, whom they encountered in the area. The Weyanoc were gradually displaced by colonial encroachment. They merged with other, larger tribes about the time of
Bacon's Rebellion (1676-1677).
English colonization The English began to colonize the area under the auspices of the
Virginia Company, a private company formed to support this effort and gain profits from expected development and trade. In 1619, the Virginia Company established
Charles Cittie as one of the first four "boroughs" or "incorporations" in the region. West of James County, it was named for Prince Charles, second son of King
James I of England, who became the Prince of Wales and
heir apparent after the death of his older brother Henry in 1612. After his father's death, he became King
Charles I of England. 1619 marked the arrival of the first
enslaved Africans in the Tidewater area. They had been captured from a Spanish ship and first landed at Point Comfort (present-day
Hampton, Virginia). They were treated as indentured servants in the colony, and at least one later became a landowner after gaining his freedom.
Weyanoke, remains a rural locality in Charles City County, Virginia. The Virginia Company lost its charter in 1624 under King James I, and Virginia became a
royal colony.
Charles City Shire was formed in 1634 in the
Virginia Colony by order of the King. Its name was changed to Charles City County in 1643. It is one of the five original
shires in Virginia that are extant in essentially the same political entity (county) as they were originally formed in 1634. Colonists developed the land as tobacco
plantations and produced this commodity crop for export. Cultivation and processing of this crop required intensive labor. The wealthier planters recruited
indentured servants from the British Isles and Africa, and later purchased numerous
enslaved Africans. In Virginia and the Upper South, historians have classified persons holding 20 or more slaves as planters. The majority of the colonists were English people who arrived as indentured servants and who owed labor, often as much as seven years, to wealthy patrons who had paid for their passage to gain land and laborers. The English government offered land grants to these patrons under a
headright system, which was a way to encourage settlement in the colony. During the 17th century, for economic times encouraged many to settle in the North American colonies. In the early years, the Chesapeake Bay Colony had many more men than women, but more women entered began emigrating and families were begun. As the indentured servants worked off their passage, they would be granted land of their own. By then the most successful planter families already controlled the valuable riverfront property. This gave them ready access to the waterways, the transportation system for trade and travel. Hence, later planters generally settled in the upland section of the county. The original central city of the county was Charles City Point, located south of the
James River at the confluence of the
Appomattox River. The first Charles City County courthouses were located along the James River at
Westover on the north side and at
City Point on the south side. The latter's name was shortened from Charles City Point. from the South to enter Charles City County
Breaking off other counties and cities In 1703, all of the original area of Charles City County south of the James River was severed to form
Prince George County. This in turn was later divided, in a pattern typical of colonial development, into several other counties and independent cities. From Charles City County through Prince George County came
Brunswick County in 1732;
Amelia County in 1735; and
Prince Edward County in 1754.
Early Religion As in other parts of the Tidewater, common planters and merchants of Charles City County were attracted by the appeal of
Methodist and
Baptist preachers in the
Great Awakening in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Several Methodist and Baptist churches were established in the early 19th century, mostly in the upland areas of the county. The county also had numerous
Quaker settlers. The elite planters of the James River plantations tended to remain Anglican; the United States Episcopal Church was founded after the American Revolution.
Black Americans With the growth of tobacco as a cash crop, demand for workers increased. Twenty-three African slaves were known to have been brought to Charles City County before 1660. During the late 1600s and early 1700s, African slave labor rapidly supplanted European indentured servants. By the eighteenth century, slaves had become the major source of agricultural labor in the
Virginia Colony, then devoted primarily to the labor-intensive commodity crop of tobacco. The earliest record of a free black living in Charles City County is the September 16, 1677, petition for freedom by a woman named Susannah. The
Lott Cary House in the county has long been honored as the birth site of
Lott Cary, a slave who purchased his freedom and that of his children. In the 19th century, he became a founding father of the new country of
Liberia in Africa. Beginning as early as the 17th century, some planters freed individual slaves by
manumission. Some free
mixed-race families, established before the
American Revolution, were formed by descendants of unions or marriages between white
indentured or free women and African men, indentured, slave or free. Colonial law and the principle of
partus sequitur ventrem, provided that children were born into the status of their mother. Thus, the mixed-race children of white women were born free. If illegitimate, they had to serve time in lengthy apprenticeships, but freedom gave them an important step forward. In the first two decades after the American Revolution, numerous planters in Charles City County freed their slaves, persuaded by Quaker, Baptist and Methodist abolitionists. Many free blacks settled together in today's
Ruthville, Virginia, a crossroads and one of the first free-black communities in present-day Charles City County and the state of Virginia. Virginia established statewide legal racial segregation when white Democrats regained control of the state legislature. They disfranchised most blacks at the turn of the century, maintaining this exclusion until after passage of civil rights legislation. In 1968, following passage of the federal
Civil Rights Act and
Voting Rights Act of the 1960s, and federal enforcement of the black franchise,
James Bradby of Charles City County was the first black American Virginian to be elected to the position of County
Sheriff.
James River plantations Charles City County is the location of several historic plantations. •
Berkeley Plantation is the birthplace of
William Henry Harrison, ninth president of the United States, born on February 9, 1773. •
Greenway Plantation is the birthplace of
John Tyler, the tenth president, was born in 1790. •
Sherwood Forest Plantation was bought by John Tyler in 1842. Tyler descendants have resided at Sherwood Forest Plantation continuously since then. •
Shirley Plantation was the home of the Edward Hill family, including two Speakers of the House of Burgesses in the 17th century. The fourth generation Edward Hill died as a teenager, after one of his sisters married John Carter of Coromatan Plantation in Lancaster County, the son of King Carter. Their son Charles Hill Carter inherited Shirley Plantation before the American Revolutionary War, although he also inherited Coromatan and transferred his main residence there. Nonetheless, Shirley Plantation has remained in the family, operated by three men named Hill Carter in the 19th century, and later by descendants of General
Robert E. Lee (his mother, Ann Hill Carter, was Charles Hill Carter's daughter) who still live and work the plantation today. •
Westover Plantation was first occupied in 1619 and was the home of Captain Thomas Palett in 1637. Westover was the home of
Richard Bland,
William Byrd I, and
William Byrd II (founder of Richmond). It was William Byrd the III that built the current mansion around 1750. The plantation is the resting place of William Byrd I, and William Byrd II. The plantation has had eight owners since the Byrd family possessed the property. During the Civil War, Major General
Fitz John Porter was stationed at Westover. General Porter was the protégé to Major General George McClellan who occupied nearby Berkeley Plantation. ==Geography==